President Obama ties Ken Cuccinelli to 'extreme faction' of GOP

Democrats gambled on Sunday that Virginia voters are angrier with Republicans over the shutdown than at Barack Obama for the botched health care rollout.

The president worked during an afternoon rally in the Washington suburb of Arlington to link the GOP candidate for governor, Ken Cuccinelli, with the wing of the national party he blames for paralysis.

Text Size

-

+

reset

Cuccinelli campaign in 60 secs

Biden: Cuccinelli views from another era

“You’ve seen an extreme faction of the Republican Party that has shown again and again and again that they’re willing to hijack the entire party and the country and the economy and grind progress to an absolute halt if they don’t get 100 percent of what they want,” Obama told a crowd of 1,600 in a high school gymnasium.

“You cannot afford to have a governor who is thinking the same way,” he added, highlighting how furloughs hurt Virginia more than almost anywhere else. “That’s a practical job. They can’t afford to be an ideologue.”

Obama said Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe will follow in the pragmatic legacy of the two previous Democratic governors, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, both of whom are now in the Senate.

With different issues, both sides want to nationalize the race to fire up their core base of support ahead of Tuesday’s low-turnout off-year election.

Cuccinelli’s campaign aggressively bracketed Obama by focusing on health care. It welcomed the president’s trip — just a 10-minute drive from the White House — predicting it would galvanize conservatives eager to make the vote a referendum on the problems with HealthCare.gov.

Obama, though, did not discuss his signature legislative accomplishment during his 21-minute speech, and McAuliffe made only passing reference to his support for expanding Medicaid.

The front-runner seized instead on an interview that Cuccinelli gave Fox News on Friday in which he said he’s “perfectly happy” with voter attention turning away from the shutdown — which ended 2½ weeks ago — and back to Obamacare, an issue more helpful to him.

McAuliffe slammed Cuccinelli for not publicly condemning Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) when both spoke at a gala for social conservatives in Richmond during the shutdown, even though Cuccinelli has said he told Cruz backstage to get the shutdown over with as soon as possible.

McAuliffe also attacked Cuccinelli for refusing to say how he would have voted on the compromise that ended the imbroglio.

“He stood with the tea party and not with Virginia families,” McAuliffe said. “Can you even imagine if Ted Cruz, Ken Cuccinelli and the tea party ran the Virginia government?”

A major emphasis of the president’s speech was warning Democrats not to take for granted McAuliffe’s lead in the polls.

“Nothing makes me more nervous than when my supporters start feeling too confident, so I want to put the fear of God in all of you,” Obama said. “Virginia historically has always been a swing state, and this race will be close because past races in this state have always been close.”

Turnout among all groups drops off from the presidential to gubernatorial elections. In 2008, 75 percent of eligible voters cast ballots. It was 40 percent in 2009. Last year, 72 percent voted.

The McAuliffe campaign has gone to great lengths to activate the Obama coalition, especially women and African-Americans, without having the first black president on the ballot.

Actress Kerry Washington of the show “Scandal” focused on a laundry list of issues important to the coalition.

“The other side, the tea party, they usually show up every election,” she said, fresh off hosting “Saturday Night Live.” “They don’t take their right to vote for granted. … Let’s make sure that the voices of a few don’t drown out the voices of all of you.”